Coming Soon to a Courthouse Near You: The DOJ Scandal

Now the sh-t is really hitting the fan: In a spate of cases nationwide, defense attorneys are claiming that prosecutors brought charges against their clients for political reasons. Even minor instances of prosecutor misconduct notoriously create a rash of appeals. Given the scope of the Justice scandal, there is likely to be a waterfall of legal filingssome legit. and some far-fetched. For example, Missouri lawyers have referred to the DOJ's habit of charging Democrats with corruption to question a 2006 indictment of a company owned by a prominent Democrat. (The company was allegedly in violation of federal wage laws.) The case sounds fishy, to be sure:

The indictment, which came two months after the owner announced that she was running for political office, was obtained by a Republican U.S. attorney who also has been criticized because he charged workers for a left-leaning political group on the eve of the 2006 midterm election.

But defense attorneys have been known to grasp at straws, and for every legitimate charge of political shenanigans, there will be 10 accusations. The lawyer representing a man charged with child pornography has argued that the case is politically motivated. And attorneys for a prominent county-level Democrat in Delaware forced the Republican prosecutor in the case to respond with an inch-and-a-half thick brief denying partisan considerations before the judge determined that corruption charges against the Democrat were initiated before scandal-ridden AG AG took office.

We're likely to see more of these claims in the future, and judges around the country will be forced to weigh the merit of each and every one. Still further travesty of justice undertaken by the department charged with guarding against it.